91% Indian Singles Look for Love in Matrimony: BharatMatrimony Valentine’s Day Survey

Of the 8058 members who participated in a BharatMatrimony survey recently, a whopping 91% of singles ready to marry said that they’re actually looking for the “love of their life” on BharatMatrimony, not just a life partner.

Interestingly, 86% participants said they’d celebrate Valentine’s Day with spouse. 58% women and 45% men opined that celebrating the day “helps strengthen marital bonds” while 31% women and 48% men said that it was a “special day to express love.” Among those who said they may not celebrate the day post marriage, 31% women and 41% men reasoned that “anniversaries and birthdays are more important days,” while 35% women and 29% men said Valentine’s Day was “just a marketing gimmick.”

When asked how they wanted their partner to express love on Valentine’s Day, interestingly 54% women wished that their partner expressed love to them by saying “I found my equal'”. Only 22% women opined that they wanted a gift. 32% men, however, said they’d express love to spouse by “Gifting her something she loves”, 25% by “Saying I found my equal,” 21% by going out on a romantic dinner and 15% by holidaying.

When posed “What’s the best day of the year to express love post marriage?” 47% women and 42% men said “Wedding anniversary” while 34% women and 31% men felt “Partner's birthday” and 17% women and 23% men preferred Valentine’s Day as the day to express love to partner. In response to “Who should plan for Valentine’s Day after marriage, 27% said the husband, while 23% opined the wife should do the honours.

In response to “How important is it to gift spouse on Valentine’s Day?” 61% men said “they can’t forget to gift her on this day”, while interestingly a whopping 83% women said, “it was not important” and 17% women humorously said, “it won’t be a good day if he forgets it”.

“We’re pretty close to our customers, constantly studying their changing aspirations with regard to relationships and matrimony. Our current survey proves that young singles are not merely seeking a life partner but rather “the love of their life”. Matrimony.com’s widest choice of over 4.5 Million bride and groom profiles, detailed information about the members including their interests, features like secure chat and the option to directly call matches one likes, help members discover their love that leads to a happy marriage, says Rajasekar KS, GM – Marketing at Matrimony.com.

Columbia Pacific Communities Celebrates ‘#ExpressionOfLove’ this Valentine’s Day

Beyond the fences of age, love knows no boundaries and only grows stronger with time. To celebrate love in in all its myriad forms and glory, Columbia Pacific Communities, India's largest provider of services and care to senior living communities took a unique initiative this Valentine’s Day titled ‘#ExpressionsOfLove’.

Often seniors in society are associated with various labels and celebrating love and being romantic is considered an impractical idea for seniors.

As a brand, Columbia Pacific Communities has always stood against ageism, and attempted to break age-related stereotypes, whether it is through our campaign RELEARN or through initiatives such as organising south India’s first senior citizens flash mob.

Through a unique Valentine’s Day experience for its senior residents, the brand takes the conversation of “positive ageing” forward.

Drawing parallels between food and relationships, Columbia Pacific Communities believes that both come with their own unique flavours, and both need time and patience to be nurtured. #ExpressionsOfLove is a symbol of acknowledgment that love is ageless and selfless. It focuses on the fact that food often is an individual’s first love, and the love for food often builds lasting, loving relationships. Nothing spells ‘love’ more than a platter of delicious fare.

Commenting on the initiative, Piali Dasgupta, VP - Marketing, Columbia Pacific Communities, said, “Popular culture and mass media, for long, has associated Valentine’s Day with the youth. But what’s love and its many expressions, including romanticism, got to do with age? Through “Expressions of Love”, we once again break this stereotype, and help our senior residents to celebrate the day of love with their special one. That special someone could be your spouse or partner, you friend, colleague, dog or anyone else that you truly love.”

Turn this Valentine’s Day into Galentine’s Day with your Gal-Pals

Who says Valentine’s Day is a day only couples celebrate? Its a day about celebrating love -  love for family, friends, colleagues and so on. This year, why not turn Valentine’s Day into a celebration of your valuable relationship with your favorite girls!? These girlfriends are your best shopping dates, 4 AM chat buddies, your best motivator as well as critique and so much more. So, here are some simple yet great ways of enjoying your Galentines’ day to the fullest with your girlfriends and make your bond grow even stronger!

Weekend Trip: 2020 has been kind enough and 14th February is a Friday! So you can plan a long weekend getaway with your girlfriends to a nearby location and enjoy some therapeutic girl time! Depending on your location you can plan a beach getaway or a hill station and soak up some sun. All you need is your phone to make bookings via apps like Make My Trip for flights, Uber to sort your nearby travel, OYO to book accommodation at the tap of a button. Its as simple as that! In case you are worried about safety, you can use apps like Safetipin to know more about your surroundings and take safer decisions

Book a Spa Day or a Salon appointment! What better excuse than this to indulge in some pampering with your gal-pals! Pamper yourselves with a good spa or salon experience and de-stress yourselves. With a plethora of options like O2 Spa and several luxury resort spas in India you can either indulge or sit back at home and simply book an UrbanClap service. Don’t just refresh, rejuvenate!

Weekend of Positivity: In our busy lives we tend to forget to take a deep breath and relax. This is the time to take a step back and do it with your closest friends by your side. Book yourself and your friends a weekend yoga or meditation retreat and learn the art of mindfulness. What better way to spend time than learning and spreading some positivity!

Time for F.R.I.E.N.D.S: Stream your favourite shows and binge on scrumptious meals at the same time in the comfort of your home. Let’s say technology has really made things easier for us. While Netflix or Amazon Prime will let you snuggle in bed and enjoy a movie marathon, Swiggy, or Zomato will get you food at your doorstep. So, you literally have to do nothing but just operate few apps and relax with your girlfriends

Shopping Fiesta: Your gang can also indulge in some crazy shopping this weekend with some great sales going on. If you are not amongst the ones who like offline retail therapy, indulge in online shopping with e-commerce platforms like Myntra, Amazon and the likes offering great discounts. Be each other’s not-so-secret Santa, who cares if it’s February on the calendar!

This special day is about loved ones, so spend it with the ones who are really special to you! Happy Valentine’s Day!

GitHub Expands International Operations to India, Home of its Third Largest Developer Community

GitHub Inc., world’s leading software development platform, has announced the opening of its subsidiary, GitHub India Private Limited, with the aim to better serve the developer community and GitHub’s enterprise customers in the country. India is home to GitHub’s third largest community of developers, growing 22 percent over the past year, adding to an already significant base.

Speaking at the NASSCOM Technology and Leadership Forum 2020, Erica Brescia, Chief Operating Officer, GitHub, said, “As the third largest group of active developers on GitHub, Indian developers are truly building the future of software. Over the past year, the number of public repositories in India has grown 75 percent, demonstrating a sharp increase in collaboration across the Indian developer community. In building out a local team in India, our goal is to create stronger relationships with developers and support open source development across developers, maintainers, and enterprises.”

GitHub’s growth strategy in the country will be spearheaded by Maneesh Sharma, General Manager of GitHub India. Over the next few months, GitHub will build a team across all functions—including community, engineering, sales, support, marketing and services—to enable customers to adopt DevOps best practices at scale and collaborate with over 40 million developers across more than 100 million projects.

Along with support for a thriving open source community in India, GitHub is also working with organizations across industries to help them deliver winning customer experiences using a modern software supply chain and industry best-practices.

A growing number of companies in India, including Swiggy  and ArisGlobal are collaborating and building the software that powers their businesses on GitHub Enterprise.

GitHub is also expanding its channel partner program to support GitHub Enterprise customers in running their software development operations effectively, and enable them to achieve their digital transformation ambitions. 

India is also home to one of the largest communities of student developers in the world. GitHub is committed to supporting the next generation of developers and helping more student communities come together to learn and build on GitHub. As part of the efforts to empower student developers, GitHub Education is extending its popular GitHub Hackathon Grant program to students in India, supporting student hackathons with up to $1,000 in grants.

About GitHub
GitHub is the developer company. We make it easier for developers to be developers: to work together, to solve challenging problems, to create the world’s most important technologies. As the home of the world’s largest community of developers and their code, we foster a collaborative community that can come together—as individuals and in teams—to create the future of software and make a difference in the world.

Routematic Commits To A Greener Future. Reduced 2.56 Lac Tonnes Of Carbon In 2019

Routematic witnessed solid progress towards sustainability targets in the year 2019, emphasising the importance of collaboration with sustainable vendor partners across the value chain. From launching electric vehicles for India’s largest IT services company, to powering a million trips every month for over 80 customers, Routematic achieved several milestones in the year 2019.

As was its pledge towards environment, Routematic reduced 2.56 lac tonnes of carbon, covered distance of over 167 million kilometres that saved around 33.26 million litres of fuel and powered over 42,000 shared trips equivalent to planting 6250 trees.

Routematic ended the year with a bang by winning Nasscom Emerge League of 10. The product was awarded best in the logistics’ category in 2019. This win further validated Routematic’s commitment towards developing a sustainable product that will disrupt employee transportation for the corporates.

Commenting on the developments, Co-Founder & CEO Surajit Das said, “Routematic has emerged as a game changer for MNCs and is a true role model for environmental leadership. Employee transportation is the third highest cost for organizations that comes with even bigger responsibilities towards both- employee safety and the environment. We feel proud that we could achieve 100% successful and safe trips while reducing carbon footprints of over 1.5lacs employees every month.

“Good news is companies in India have started to align their employee transportation goals with our vision. A-List companies know sustainability presents an exciting race to the top. Hence providing safe and sustainable transportation facilities to their employees have started to rank higher in the company agendas. Employee transportation is an undeniable business risk that companies need to mitigate to only trusted partners,” added Surajit.

About Routematic

Routematic is an urban mobility solution to daily office commute, helping companies with round the clock employee shifts, augment their transport service experiences. Routematic signifies one-stop automated and integrated tech platform that harnesses both demand and supply-side capabilities to deliver unmatched safety, reliability, cost operations, on-time performance, and 100% compliance.

Tech Skills will Dominate in 2020 While Communication and Design will be the Most In-Demand

The market is transforming at a breakneck pace. Amidst rapid technological adoption across organizations, several conventional job roles are becoming redundant and are being displaced by newer profiles with evolved skills requirements. The solution for job seekers and professionals in this environment is the continuous acquisition of industry-relevant skills. With a firm finger on the pulse of the fast-changing business ecosystem, Shine.com, India’s 2nd largest job search platform, has mapped the top skills that recruiters will look for in 2020.

According to the Shine.com jobs data, emerging skills such as Machine Learning and Data Analytics are set to dominate the skills landscape in 2020. Traditional technical skills such as Java, SQL, C/C++, CSS, Linux/Unix, .Net, Sap, Cloud/Azure, HTML, AJAX, and Autocad will also continue to be in demand during the year. However, while organizations continue to gear up for a digital-first future by acquiring tech talent, recruiters will also look for soft skills such as communication, behavioral training and project management in prospective hires. Further, conventional skills such as marketing and advertising which are crucial for brand success will also remain relevant in 2020.

Speaking on the findings, Zairus Master, CEO, Shine.com, said, “India is standing at the cusp of a technological revolution. Organizations across industries are adopting innovations such as AI, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, and Data Analytics, among others. It is no surprise, then, that some of the most in-demand hard skills of 2020 are projected to be tech skills. That being said, we do not see the importance of soft skills such as communication, creativity, emotional intelligence, teamwork, etc. phasing out anytime soon.”

He added, “Our latest report highlights some of the most important skills that recruiters will be looking for in 2020. Job seekers can utilize this information to upskill themselves accordingly and plot a lucrative career path.”

In a region-wise analysis, the platform found that Bangalore, the IT hub of the country, will witness the continued demand for skills in SQL, Java, C/C++, etc. along with allied skills such as design and communication. Mumbai, the Financial Capital of the country, is expected to see an increased demand for marketing and communications skills along with Java and MIS. Interestingly, tier-2 cities such as Pune and Ahmedabad are also projected to register an increased demand for technical skills such as SQL, Python and Data structures.     

Bengaluru is India’s Next Lighthouse City for Shared, Clean, and Citizen-Centric Mobility

Bengaluru is India’s next lighthouse city for shared, clean, and citizen-centric mobility. In Bengaluru, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Micelio are partnering with the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), Invest Karnataka Forum, and Department of Industries and Commerce (DIC) to host the Urban Mobility Lab, a platform, which supports Indian cities to identify, develop, and implement mobility solutions that transform how people and goods move. Since 2017, when NITI Aayog launched the initiative, RMI has partnered with the Delhi Government and Pune Municipal Corporation to cohost the Lab in Delhi and Pune.

An initiative led by RMI, the Urban Mobility Lab will aim to further accelerate Bengaluru’s  transition to shared, clean, and citizen-centric mobility by serving as a forum for open discussion and a platform for action through facilitated multistakeholder convenings and ongoing collaborative work.

On partnership with RMI and Micelio, Ponnuraj,  DULT’s commissioner said, “We are happy to host the Urban Mobility Lab. This initiative can support our current mobility initiatives and increase sustainable mobility options in Bengaluru.”

To inaugurate the Lab, DULT, DIC, RMI, and Micelio are hosting a multistakeholder workshop on February 19–20. At the workshop, over 120 participants from across the mobility ecosystem will work together to address system-level barriers and develop implementation plans for mobility solutions. The workshop is organized around six thematic areas—charging and battery swapping infrastructure, data-based solutions, electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, first and last-mile connectivity, public transit, and urban final-mile delivery.

While discussing the workshop, Shreyas Shibulal, Micelio’s founder and director said, “We are excited to partner with DULT, DIC, and RMI. We believe a collaborative process that brings together the government, private sector, and civil society can support the development and implementation of real-world mobility solutions.”

Akshima Ghate, RMI’s, Principal, said, “Bringing all stakeholders together under one roof, encourages integration and can accelerate work on existing and new solutions that support Bengaluru’s mobility goals such as efficient and sustainable transportation.”

The Urban Mobility Lab is designed to catalyze Bengaluru’s transition to shared, clean, and citizen-centric mobility. After the inaugural workshop, RMI and Micelio, in coordination with system stakeholders, will continue to support the implementation of action plans generated at the workshop and also identify new opportunities that can help enable change. The lessons learned and successes realized can guide the scaling of mobility solutions in Bengaluru and beyond.